Hillary and McCain both supported the march to war in Iraq, Obama opposed it despite...

[JVS]

massive public support for the war. It tells us a lot about who is qualified to lead our land.

[Oleladylib]

No facts to support...He was MIA when the vote was took...How I would have voted

doesn't count for anything..It's called Monday Morning quarterbacking

[JVS]

2. He spoke out when our "leaders/bootlickers" were going along.

They suck

[Fresh_Start]

1. One thing bothers me about that viewpoint

basically you are saying that Obama's decision-making by the gut (without looking at intelligence information) makes him qualified to lead. Personally, Bush's decision-making by the gut (and forcing the intelligence to match the gut feeling) disqualified him for leadership.

[JVS]

3. Why do you assume it was decision making from "the gut"?

There was plenty of information out there from the previous 10 years. Many people outside of the Senate made judgments based on the best information they had, and turned out to be right.

Also, if you are going to credit Hillary and McCain with making informed decisions, then you have to at least penalize Hillary for (by her own admission) not reading the information.

[Fresh_Start]

Because the NIE was not available

until one year later.

So he did not have anything like the latest intelligence information.

[JVS]

8. The latest doctored intelligence?

Let me get this straight. Are you saying that all opposition to the war before it actually happened can be dismissed as uninformed oposition?

[Fresh_Start]

10. the public is allowed uninformed decision making

but someone in a position of power should be held to a higher standard of actually being informed before making a public pronouncement.

[JVS]

13. Please answer this question: was it possible for any of the general public to make an informed...

decision about Iraq?

Yes or no

[Fresh_Start]

19. No

Because the public did not have access to the intelligence or the intelligence experts

I was anti-war (both Afghanistan and Iraq).
It doesn't mean I was informed or believed myself to be informed.
I just believed it was the wrong response.
Of course, I was not responsible for peoples lives.

[moondust]

18. I HAVE NEWS.

There was no valid intelligence. Period. There were no WMD so there obviously was no intelligence about non-existent WMD. There was no al Qaeda there so there obviously was no intelligence about them. If Hillary Clinton and John McCain had done their jobs they would have known that there was no intelligence and that there was no reason to invade Iraq.

I have personally not ruled out the possibility that they did, in fact, know there were no WMD and no reason to invade Iraq but they, like Bush and Cheney, were after the oil and the political capital a "cakewalk" invasion would bring them. At any cost.

[Fresh_Start]

20. turns out that way

but you either have to rely on intelligence or flip a coin.
I say rely on the intelligence and constantly work to improve intelligence.

[Fresh_Start]

23. Have you ever had to make a decision affecting someone elses life?

I have. I know that when I'm making decisions affecting others lives.....I go all over protective.

So while I am anti-war, I cannot in good conscience say that I would have VOTED against IWR. Because I would feel the weight of responsibility for millions of American lives.

[moondust]

25. You sound like Cheney.

Believing it's okay for the U.S. to invade whomever it chooses and cause the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands because you're paranoid of what somebody "might" do, even though you have no evidence that they intend to do anything to you.

[Fresh_Start]

29. BS

Unlike Cheney I admit, I don't know what was the right thing to so.

"I cannot in good conscience say that I would have VOTED against IWR."

All I'm saying is that I at this point in time, do not know what I would have done at that point in time.
I didn't say that would have voted for IWR.
I said I wasn't put into the position to make a decision.
I do not know today what I would have done at that point in time if I were a Senator.

[suston96]

4. It tells us that Obama did not have to cast a vote and ....

...that he himself has admitted he does not know how he would have voted on that Joint Resolution.

Huge majorities in the Congress, both houses, voted for a joint resolution based on fabricated intelligence given them by the Executive Branch of government.

Check polls around that time. The majority of the American people were also suckered into supporting Bush and Cheney and Powell based on lies regarding the existence of WMD.

Obama had nothing to do with that vote and can now say anything he wants about how he "felt" about the war. Yeah, he has great qualities for leadership, demonstrated by, among other things, all the votes he missed after he got to Congress.

[JVS]

6. Obama did not have to take an unpopular public stand on this either, but he did.

While McCain and Hillary toed Bush's line.

The polls help prove my point. A politician stood up and said "People, you're being hoodwinked", while others marched along.

[suston96]

15. McCain and Hillary and a huge majority in the Congress "toed the line" ......

....after being presented evidence BY the Executive Branch of government of the existence of WMD.

But by all means, condemn the US Congress and give Bush and his lying conspirators a pass to make your candidate look good.

[Yossariant]

5. Obama has taken three different positions on the war. "No." "Undecided." "Yes."

"During the 2002-2003 timeframe, he was a minor local official uninvolved in the national debate on the war so we can only judge from his own statements prior to the 2008 campaign. Obama repeated these points in a whole host of interviews prior to announcing his candidacy. On July 27, 2004, he told the Chicago Tribune on Iraq: 'There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage.' In his book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006, he wrote, '...on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried.' And, in 2006, he clearly said, 'I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/obamas-hollow-judgment_b_89441.html

[BigDDem]

7. Yet BO still votes to fund the war

which seems to be just great with the flock.

[ginnyinWI]

12. you have to fund the troops.

If my nephew had to go back, I'd want him to have every protection available. It's a stupid war--but why make it easier for them to get killed in it? BushCo doesn't care about that end of the deal so the Congress has had to do what it can.

[BigDDem]

21. Right, I understand from BO supporters that we should all

bow to the alter because of a speech he made but it's okie dokie to
keep paying for the bombs.

[ginnyinWI]

24. If the issue at hand is war

and the choice is Hillary v.s. Obama, Hillary has the more hawkish record and the least opposition to it.

[BigDDem]

28. The logic of BO flock:

BO gave a speech opposing the war - HURRAY!!!!!
BO supports funding the bombs - HURRAY!!!!!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

9. Actually, It Tells Us Nothing.

Since Obama wasn't in the Senate at the time, what he did or didn't do is irrelevant. Comparing apples to oranges is always an exercise in ignorance.

[papau]

11. despite...massive public support -wrong - in his Chicago district anti was "right" decision - unless

in 2002 he was campaigning for 2004 Senate race general eleaction (it was still "right" decision for primary in 04).

If Obama claims courage for going against the opinion of his voters - he is yet again a liar (add this lie to NAFTA/Canada memo, and CNBC don't worry about cost of Obama programs because Obama does not intend/expect to pass them).

The legitamate claim is that the 2002 speech was, like all Obama speeches, well done - and proved to be correct in his assumption the Bush could not have had information that Obama did not have that would justify using the threat of war to get the UN inspectors back into Irag. As you no doubt recall, in 2002 Bush declared he did not need a Congressional vote and showed no intent to try the inspectors again - the IWR at least got the inspectors on their way back in.

[eleny]

14. I don't recall DUers supporting the decision to give W the power

But they gave Kerry a pass in '04. Clinton supporters are willing to give her a pass, too.

But now there's an alternative. People like myself who swore they'd never vote for a candidate who supported W can support someone, Obama, who was against the invasion.

And clarify something for me. Didn't Obama hold that opinion during his campaign for office? That was a huge risk given how many supported invading Iraq as you point out.

Hillary's made two huge mistakes. She failed to do the formal apology over her vote. And she failed to read the country and see how ready we would be to embrace an alternative candidate.

At first I thought that Obama might be wasting his time throwing his hat in the ring against the Clinton juggernaut. I have to conclude that he and his campaign are better at reading Americans than was imagined.

[kentuck]

16. All the Democrats that were planning on running for the Presidency...

voted for the war. We can only assume that in 2002, Obama did not plan on running for President or he may have voted differently. Whatever the case, he did come out against the war. But not all Democratic Senators voted for the war in Iraq. Many opposed it. But they were not running for President.

[JVS]

30. So Obama was planning to run since Kindergarten except for in 2002?

:crazy:

[GoldieAZ49]

17. Obama made a reelection speech to liberal constituents against the war

BFD

campaign rhetoric does not a President make.

Why didn't he go to the press and make that speech nationally? Why didn't he go to the floor of the senate and make that speech prior to the vote?

Could it be because he was not concerned about this country going to war, but about getting reelected?

[Jacobin]

22. There wasn't massive public support for the war. That is a fiction

This poll taken by Gallup a month before the invasion:



BTW, remember he did it without a UN resolution authorizing invasion/

linky:

http://65.109.167.118/pipa/pdf/mar03/IraqUNfut%20Mar03%20rpt.pdf


Which of course makes congresscritters who voted for it anyway even more craven.

[Maribelle]

26. What do you think Obama meant in his October 2002 speech when he said ...

Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work


Do you think this meant Obama believed Iraq had WMDs?

[DemBones DemBones]

27. He wasn't IN the Senate TO vote and one speech in 2002 does not atone

for all his votes for funding the war or his vote to renew the PATRIOT Act.

People are so badly informed. Obama was an Illinois state senator when he gave an anti-war speech at a rally in Chicago in 2002. Big whoop. If he'd been in the Senate and had to vote for or against on IWR, he'd have voted "Yes" like every other Senator except Bill Graham.

In 2004, running for the U.S. Senate, and support for the war was pretty strong, he told a Chicago newspaper that his position on the war was really no different from George Bush's. Explain how THAT is an anti-war position.

Obama will say anything to get elected and then lie about it later. This is the politics of hope?

No, this is just another politician, and one with three years of national experience, two years of which he's spent campaigning for president!

He chairs an oversight committee that's supposed to keep tabs on Afghanistan. He's had that position for 18 months and not held one (1) meeting yet!!! He claims to care about veterans but he doesn't care about the people on active duty in a combat zone.